I have served as a pastor in three churches and have seen the results of the un-biblical institute of the "priesthood" of the clergy from the inside and out.  Even in Protestant churches the form and substance of a special priesthood remains, only the title of priest has been omitted.  It is the pastor and generally only the pastor who baptizes, marries, buries the dead, and preaches.  Though he does not claim the magical power of transubstantiation, it is he who blesses the bread and wine.  He is expected to visit the sick and the wayward.  He is expected to bless the potluck, and when the church has a picnic, he is expected to pray for fair weather.  Somehow, the laity assume he has special pull with God and so his prayers are always more efficacious. To be Pastor, one must possess a special call from God and is thus God's anointed. He is regarded as the supreme spiritual authority in the church.  Even though in most denominations he shuns the title Priest or Father, he accepts such substitutes as Pastor, Preacher, and Reverend.

The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule on their own authority; And My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? (Jeremiah 5:31)

The clergy has usurped the priesthood of all believers and the laity and clergy loves it so.  The clergy get a salary, prestige, and power; while the laity shed responsibility and accountability.  Everyone wins!  Everyone that is except Jesus.  It is His body we have tampered with.  What right have we to substitute prosthetics for the real.  This is sin! 

Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern which he had seen. (Acts 7:44)
Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. (Phi 3:17)

§ 42. Clergy and Laity.

The idea and institution of a special priesthood, distinct from the body of the people, with the accompanying notion of sacrifice and altar, passed imperceptibly from Jewish and heathen reminiscences and analogies into the Christian church. The majority of Jewish converts adhered tenaciously to the Mosaic institutions and rites, and a considerable part never fully attained to the height of spiritual freedom proclaimed by Paul, or soon fell away from it. He opposed legalistic and ceremonial tendencies in Galatia and Corinth; and although sacerdotalism does not appear among the errors of his Judaizing opponents, the Levitical priesthood, with its three ranks of high-priest, priest, and Levite, naturally furnished an analogy for the threefold ministry of bishop, priest, and deacon, and came to be regarded as typical of it. Still less could the Gentile Christians, as a body, at once emancipate themselves from their traditional notions of priesthood, altar, and sacrifice, on which their former religion was based. Whether we regard the change as an apostasy from a higher position attained, or as a reaction of old ideas never fully abandoned, the change is undeniable, and can be traced to the second century. The church could not long occupy the ideal height of the apostolic age, and as the pentecostal illumination passed away with the death of the apostles, the old reminiscences began to reassert themselves.' In the apostolic church preaching and teaching were not confined to a particular class, but every convert could proclaim the gospel to unbelievers, and every Christian who had the gift could pray and teach arid exhort in the congregation.' The New Testament knows no spiritual aristocracy or nobility, but calls all believers " saints," though many fell far short of their vocation. Nor does it recognize a special priesthood in distinction from the people, as mediating between God and the laity. It knows only one high-priest, Jesus Christ, and clearly teaches the universal priesthood, as well as universal kingship, of believers. It does this in a far deeper and larger sense than the Old; in a sense, too, which even to this day is not yet fully realized. The entire body of Christians are called "clergy", a peculiar people, the heritage of God. On the other hand it is equally clear that there was in the apostolic church a ministerial office, instituted by Christ, for the very purpose of raising the mass of believers from infancy and pupilage to independent and immediate intercourse with God. (Schaff - History of the Christian Church, Vol. 2 pg. 123,124 )

That Schaff is no friend of New Testament Church order is made clear when he prefaces the statement above with:

"Those who condemn, in principle, all hierarchy, sacerdotalism, and ceremonialism, should remember that God himself appointed the priesthood and ceremonies in the Mosaic dispensation, and that Christ submitted to the requirements of the law in the days of his humiliation."

His need to include such a statement before discussing the realities of the apostolic age only adds weight and power to the contrast of what was and what is and what he himself characterizes as either apostasy or a failure to fully abandon old ideas.

The development of sacerdotalism took place slowly over a period of at least two centuries and progressed hand in hand with the growth of sacramentalism. The understanding of baptism and the Lord's supper shifted from one of proclamation and celebration of the grace received by faith to one of baptism and communion as a means by which grace might be received. Sacraments necessitate a priesthood, and a priesthood reinforces sacramentalism. Therefore the origin of the clergy can be traced to nothing less than a departure from the fundamental doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. The division of the Church into clergy and laity is nothing less than the first fruits of apostasy. It is not the cause, but the fruit of falling away from the truth. Apostasy is seldom a sudden fall. Rather, it is the ever increasing sum of small compromises and little sins which proceed in an ever increasing downward spiral that only the intervention of God Almighty can reverse.

By the middle of the third century, things had degenerated so far that Cyprian (Bishop of Carthage 248-258AD) writes:

Bees have a king, and cattle a leader, and they keep faith to him. Robbers obey their chief with an obedience full of humility. How much more simple and better than you are the brute cattle and dumb animals, and robbers, although bloody, and raging among swords and weapons! The chief among them is acknowledged and feared, whom no divine judgment has appointed, but on whom an abandoned faction and a guilty band have agreed.... Peter speaks there, on whom the Church was to be built, teaching and showing in the name of the Church, that although a rebellious and arrogant multitude of those who will not hear and obey may depart, yet the Church does not depart from Christ; and they are the Church who are a people united to the priest, and the flock which adheres to its pastor. Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church, and the Church in the bishop; and if any one be not with the bishop, that he is not in the Church, and that those flatter themselves in vain who creep in, not having peace with God's priests, and think that they communicate secretly with some; while the Church, which is Catholic and one, is not cut nor divided, but is indeed connected and bound together by the cement of priests who cohere with one another.

The full-fledged arrogance of the coming papacy already drips from the pen of Cyprian. No disciple of our Lord can read the works of the "Fathers" without an aching heart and the questions reverberating through his mind, "How could the Bride of Christ have fallen to this? How could those indwelt by the Holy Spirit have rejected the fountain of living waters to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, which could hold no water?"
Yet we must remember that Jesus said,

Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it. Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit; but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'

What we see in the writings of the so called Fathers is not the history of the Bride of Christ at all. It is the history of a satanic substitute. The prostitute who masquerades as the Virgin, who is drunk with the blood of the saints, is already in the third century showing unmistakable signs of coming of age and is readying herself for her soon coming marriage with the Roman State. The ax must be laid to the root of the tree. It is not enough to reject the doctrines of sacramentalism and sacerdotalism, we must reject all of its practices. We must return not only to the doctrine of the Apostles but also the practice of the Apostles.  We must return to the practice of a priesthood of all believers. We must each take up the responsibility God has given us.  For we will all give account to God for want we do and do not do.